On one side of Burgh Island an art deco hotel, once frequented Noël Coward and Agatha Christie, rises grandly above slate-grey cliffs. Guests sip fine wines on the patio, take tea in the black and white Ganges Room or, if they are feeling hardy, plunge into a private natural bathing pool.

On the other side of the tiny island, reached by a sand causeway from the south Devon coast, ramblers, dog walkers and daytrippers are battling to have more modest fun. At low tide they can stroll across to the island with picnics and dreams of finding a pleasant spot in which to enjoy it.

But many leave disappointed. The first clue that not all are welcome is to be found on the whitewashed wall of the Pilchard Inn, once a favoured haunt of fishermen, pirates and smugglers. A sign - in tasteful art deco style script - reads: "Please be aware that this island is private property." Tiptoe a little further and a notice at the foot of the hotel's drive hammers home the message: "This island is private."

In case you've got a thick skin there are more sign orders: "No picnicking." And don't even think about trying to get into the Burgh Island hotel for a cream tea. Its grounds are fenced off and the front door guarded by a discouraging gentleman. Visitors are left feeling a little miffed. Isn't the coast open to all? Surely beaches belong to the nation?

Radical

Most of the holidaymakers on the beach at Bigbury yesterday seemed to think that access to the seashore was free. It isn't. Scotland has an open coastline and and now England and Wales are moving the same way. But in England access to the sea is, in many places, blocked by private owners, corporations and even heritage bodies. Even beloved long distance coastal paths dart inland in some places because the shoreline, cliffs or moorland have an owner.

However, help may be at hand. Labour has pledged to open up more of the coast to the public and yesterday the Countryside Agency, the official adviser to the environment department, Defra, came up with its first stab at a solution to the salty problem.

The agency suggested there should be a presumption that the coast ought to be open, unless there were pressing environmental or safety reasons for it not to be. It suggested not drawing up maps specifying which bits are open and which not - as this would cut the sort of time-consuming legal wrangles that cropped up as the right to roam in inland areas came into force in the UK.

Burgh Island is the kind of place where radical ramblers determined to go where they will and landowners determined to keep them out will clash when the move to open up the coast kicks in.

Controversy over access to the island first surfaced last year. Locals and visitors had always walked across the causeway and up to the top of the island to a crumbling "huer's hut". In days gone by a lad would keep lookout from the hut for shoals of pilchards. When a glittering mass was spotted he would let out a "hue and cry" and fishermen would leave the Pilchard Inn and leap into their boats in hot pursuit.

All well and good until the new owners of the island and hotel decided to try to make their territory a little more exclusive for the celebrities and super-rich who pay up to £300 a night to be ferried over the causeway in smart black Land Rovers and stay in the fabulous suites and rooms.

Paths to the huer's hut were closed. Visitors were baffled while scores of locals wrote to Devon county council arguing that they had walked the paths for so long those routes ought to be considered public rights of way.

The hotel's owners have retreated slightly. They are now allowing people to use the paths to the hut "with our permission", on the proviso that the paths can be shut at any time.

But a third of the island around the hotel remains completely out of bounds. In effect, wonderful views across Bigbury Bay and out to sea are available only to the moneyed.

Isolation

The hotel owners, Tony Orchard and Deborah Clark, argue that their business will be ruined if people are allowed to roam at will. But that simply isn't good enough for many.

The parish clerk of Bigbury, Pam Trundle, said: "We don't feel welcome. It's as if we're not good enough. It's made people feel very bitter. Guests at the hotel have always enjoyed mixing with local characters. That is being lost now."

On the beach, Stan Mellor, 69, a former champion jockey, recalled how he enjoyed a super weekend at the hotel in the 60s as the guest of a racehorse owner. Yesterday he couldn't get in the front door though he had booked lunch. "I knocked and tried to get their attention but they didn't let me in. I couldn't have looked the part."

By late afternoon yesterday the daytrippers had returned to the mainland and the waters had closed back over the sandy causeway.

An air of splendid isolation returned to the Burgh Island hotel. If the radical ramblers get their way, it may not last.

· No-go areas

Osborne House, Isle of Wight

Access to views across the Solent from Queen Victoria's home are out of bounds to walkers through lack of access to beach, one of the last remaining obstacles to route round the island. Site run by English Heritage.

Chichester Harbour, Sussex

From Bosham Hoe to Olpark Wood is three miles of privately owned coastline where access is denied. Apart from seasonal ferry that connects two points on the footpath that misses out this area, onward journey impossible.

Isle of Sheppey, Kent

About 200 shipwrecks dotted about the coast and access to walkers is limited. A 2½-mile stretch to the south has no right of access while there is no coastal route along cliffs from Minster to Warden.

The Wash, Norfolk

It is not possible legally to walk the coast between King's Lynn and Hunstanton without going far inland and crossing busy A149 twice.

Filey to Dulcey Dock, Yorkshire

Cleveland Way ends at Filey. From there, all paths and rights of way diverted inland owing to holiday villages.